SO we're at this backyard BBQ last night, hanging out with some friends. We're all seated around a small patio table beside a large metal basin filled with beer and ice. There's some tiki torches stuck into the grass, the dogs are playing in the yard, and the conversation is flowing.

We're playing a kind of game, I guess if it had a name it'd be "Either Or", in which someone comes up with a pair of choices, and everyone has to decide which one they'd choose. In the midst of explaining why he'd choose to be an old woman's diaper for a day over being a hot woman's tampon for the same period of time; my very animated friend bumps into one of the tiki torches. The citronella bottle rocks out of its base, and while making it's decent to the grass, bursts into a liquid fireball.

Fortunately for my buddy, he manages to stamp out the flames on himself before he can sustain any injury. However, his dog did not escape so cleanly. As a matter of fact, the damn dog took off like...well, like it was on fire. So the poor bastard is running in circles around the yard, with a blaze on it's back that's a good foot tall. We're all screaming and scrambling, trying to catch him, trying to find something to put out the flames with; and the rest of the dogs are barking and howling along with us. The dog comes running up to me, flames and all, and before I even think about it, I'm pouring my beer all over him. If there's one thing that smells worse than burning dog hair, it has got to be charred dog hair that's soaked in beer.

After we'd hosed him off for good measure and checked for any serious damage, the dog decided he'd earned the right to do something completely assinine in return for being set ablaze. I guess as a big 'Fuck You' to all of us, he curled up in the icy cool water of the beer basin and stayed there for the rest of the night. Which is fine by me, because usually a dirty, singed dog laying in the beer cooler puts a real damper on actually drinking any of said beer.